


Someone's in the kitchen with the cowboy

by Elkian (SuperImposed)



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Also HEY OVW FANDOM ANYONE WANT TO BETA FOR ME, Big Brother Jesse McCree, Dad Reaper | Gabriel Reyes, Family Fluff, Fluff, Gen, Jesse McCree Can Cook Fandom Shook, Jesse McCree getting Fraternal feelings all over everything, Short, Team as Family, Teenager Jesse McCree, Unbeta'd, You can pry my family fluff headcanon from my cold dead hands, briefly at least, started off from tumblr drabbles somehow got here, the second chapter ended up sounding shippy but that was not the intent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-15
Updated: 2017-03-15
Packaged: 2018-10-05 14:25:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10310252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SuperImposed/pseuds/Elkian
Summary: Some common OVW fanon I've seen:Gabriel Reyes is an awesome cook; Dad!Reyes; Jesse McCree is a lousy cook.But if two of these are true, somehow, I don't think the thirdcanbe.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Two dozen diverse and interesting characters and I somehow ended up imprinting on the cowboy. I'm fucking distraught.  
> First and second chapter based on similar theme, not necessarily same plot thread.

"Remember, fingers in-”

“I know how to handle a knife, old man!” Jesse snapped over his shoulder. Gabriel glanced back at the ingrate and sighed heavily. “I’m not going to cut mys-”

Silence spread through the kitchen. Gabe put his clean hand against his face. “You cut yourself, didn’t you.”

“Shut up,” the kid muttered. Gabe rolled his eyes and pulled the first aid kit over from where he’d last used it (less than five minutes ago).

“Show me.” The former gang member scowled but let him clean and bandage the newest injury. Gabe put his hand on the outside of the kid’s smaller hand and bent his fingers. “Like this. Fingers in. Cut slowly - work on being good now, you can be fast later.”

Jesse grimaced but nodded, turning around to go back to chopping the cilantro. After a moment of indecision, Gabriel gathered up his own cutting board and ingredients and settled next to him, going back to work without another word.

After a few quiet minutes, Jesse finished the cilantro and dumped it in the bowl. He glanced at Gabe’s cutting board. “There’s no way that’s enough garlic,” he said curtly.

Gabe grinned. “You know, most of the people here would say it’s too much garlic.” He started peeling a new clove nonetheless.

“Well fuck them, then,” Jesse said, and Gabe burst into laughter.

—  
——  
—

“The hell happened to you, ingrate?” Gabe growled, indicating McCree’s shiny prosthetic. The cowboy grinned and pushed up the brim of his hat with Peacekeeper’s barrel.

“Kitchen accident,” he said, and was rewarded with familiar (if slightly wheezy) laughter.


	2. Who's that homesick kid? It's you.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> McCree catches sight of Hana when her camera-perfect smile slides off, and sees the homesick, tired young soldier underneath.  
> McCree has a tried-and-true method for curing teammates' homesickness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> funfax this chapter got really awful when i tried to start it so i chopped off the beginning and rewrote literally the entire thing 700 words in /shrug  
> this also means that there's a lot of headcanon that's like half-evident but not entirely fleshed out in here  
> also i'm white bread American who relied heavily on Google for this so PLEASE let me know if I got something wrong.
> 
>  
> 
> (hey sup anyone want to be my ovw fic beta reader please i'm begging you here)

 

“Hey, cowboy,” Hana greeted tiredly as she strode into the kitchen, “you wanted me?”

 

McCree grinned at her over his shoulder. For once, his hat was nowhere to be seen, his hair pulled back in a tight ponytail instead. Hana sat at the table, and to her surprise, he started putting plates down in front of her.

 

His apron said “Miss the cook” and displayed a paper target, surrounded by bullet holes.

 

“Yeah,” he was saying, and the younger soldier thought it was more than the heat of the stove that had his cheeks pink, “um. Surprise, I guess.”

 

“It’s not even my birthday,” she joked, lacing her fingers, only to straighten up as she saw just what he was putting on the table.

 

“....you made jeon? For me?”

 

“Yeah.” The cowboy had turned back to the stove and was flipping a new pancake. “I wanted it to be a big surprise, but also, well, I wasn’t sure what all you wanted in it.” He pointed at the plate in front of her. “Tell me what you think.”

 

The first pancake was already down her gullet - plain kimchi. The next had a blend of vegetables, then another kimchi, then a beef.

 

“Whoa, there, pardner,” McCree half-joked. “You’ll choke at that rate!”

 

Hana slowed down and breathed through her nose. She hadn’t thought about how the kitchen smelled when she walked in - it wasn’t quite home, but it was close.

 

If McCree saw her wiping her eyes, he didn’t comment.

 

“They’re okay,” she said thickly, reaching for the water glass in front of her. She wiped a little water off her chin and continued, “I like ‘em a little crispier. Kimchi and Spam?”

 

“On it.” McCree folded more kimchi from a small bowl (the gallon jar, he had placed on the table) into the batter, then pulled a familiar canister out of the pantry. As he chopped the processed meat into even chunks, he commented, “The egg thing, I’m not sure if it came out okay. That’s the blue bowl.”

 

Hana reached around a bottle of Mountain Dew and dragged the bowl closer to her. The gyeran jjim inside was a bit soupy, but tasted amazing. She popped the cap off the soda to wash it down.

 

“I was trying to find that rice wine thing, but it ain’t in the local shops. Same with a lot of bimnibap- bib-”

 

“Bibimbap,” Athena’s smooth tones corrected.

 

“-bib bim bap ingredients.”

 

“...why?”

 

McCree glanced back at her, flipping a pancake onto the stove in the process. The internet idol giggled as he swore and chunked it into the trash.

 

She wasn’t glaring, or even looking at him, as she continued to eat - the question wasn’t accusing, just confused. McCree shrugged. “I mean, why what? Why feed you?” She nodded, swallowing another bite of jeon.

 

“I dunno I just…. I was even younger’n you when I started here,” he said, voice softening with nostalgia. “S’hard, bein’ away from everything you knew, no matter how good or bad it mighta been.” He pointed at her with the spatula, making the young soldier sit up ramrod straight suddenly. “Also, I know it’s hard to eat properly in battle and all, but protein chips are not a meal.”

 

“I must be doing _really_ bad if _you_ can lecture me on eating right,” she shot back, content to let the more difficult subject sink back out of sight.

 

McCree obviously felt the same: he snorted and went back to the pan, flipping fresh jeon onto a new plate. “Okay, okay, I know I eat my weight in granola bars more often’n making an actual meal-”

 

Hana patted the seat next to her. “Well, hey, here’s your chance.”

 

The cowboy looked at her for a moment before huffing a soft laugh. “ _I_ must doing bad if _you_ have to take care of me,” he ribbed her. He flicked the stove burners off and ferried the steaming pancakes to the table, along with a clean plate for himself. He glanced at the state of the kitchen. “That’s gonna be fun to clean up. I always did suck at the mise-en-place thing.”

 

“Thanks for doing this, by the way,” Hana said, her voice so quiet it barely carried across the table. She took another bite of jeon, then said, her mouth mostly full, “‘ere’d ‘ou e’en ‘earn ‘ese?”

 

“Google,” McCree said with a grin, “looked up comfort food and then asked Athena to cross reference with your blog posts. And then I _still_ couldn’t get bibimbap stuff without raising suspicion.”

 

Hana snorted, raising her water glass. “You sure were committed to the surprise element, huh?”

 

“I _was_ in black ops.”

 

Hana bit into the fresh jeon, trying not to make an inappropriate sound as hot (pan-seared too!) Spam, kimchi, and crispy pancake filled her mouth. “This is… good,” she mumbled, then pointed her fork at his plate. “Eat, already! You made enough for practically the whole base!”

 

McCree chuckled and spooned out some rice and gyaren jjim. He wrinkled his nose but held the plate out nonetheless when Hana stuck serving chopsticks full of kimchi in his face. Hana nearly choked laughing at the distraught, then thoughtful, expressions that crossed his face as he tried to adjust to the taste.

 

“Where’d you even learn how to cook like this?”

 

He shrugged. “My dad- uh, my Blackwatch commander. He kind of adopted me. And, in his words,” McCree propped his hands on his hips and straightened his spine, trying to puff out more chest than he actually possessed. “‘No child of mine is gonna be unable to cook. It’s a valid life skill, and also I would _die of shame_ if you poisoned somebody’,” he said, trying for a grufff, growly tone that Hana obviously couldn’t recognize. The imitation still had her in stitches. The cowboy grinned and took another bite.

 

“More kimchi?” Hana teased, holding out a generous portion on the end of the chopsticks. McCree made a face.

 

“Remind me to make menudo for you, devil child,” he said with a worrying grin, still holding his plate out for more of the condiment. The smile grew wider. “Or grits.”

 

Hana made a sound of horror, and he laughed, a loud crack of noise that echoed off the ceiling. “How do you even-?”

 

“We’ve had all sorts through Overwatch,” he said, voice deceptively mild for a man on a mission to gross out his younger counterpart. Hana wondered if he’d had siblings, and if so, if he’d shoved bugs in their face when he was a kid. “Root beer got an especially strong reaction from basically everyone.”

 

“Zarya said it tastes like Russian cough syrup,” Hana agreed, desperate to deflect. Her salvation came in the form of a familiar _shhk-shhk_ sound.

 

“I heard Eastwood do the evil laugh, what- oh man, it smells good in here!”

 

“What’s this? Jesse made food? Swoon!” Lena exclaimed from behind Lucio, following him into the kitchen.

 

“Join us!” Hana gestured at an empty chair - pretty soon they’d have to spill over to the larger cafeteria table. “Cowboy here made enough for everyone, I’m pretty sure.” She glanced at the serving plate she’d emptied. “Maybe not quite that much.”

 

McCree laughed softer this time, scooching his chair out so he could stand. “Eat as much as you want, kiddo. Hell, maybe you’ll hit a growth spurt out of nowhere and end up taller than Jack.” As the younger (and shorter) agents practically howled with laughter at the thought of the old man’s face should she do so, he plucked a platter off the counter and passed it to Lena, pulling the fridge open to fetch another. “Here’s the fuck ups from earlier. They’re perfectly safe to eat, they’re just ugly,” he reassured the DJ when Lucio pulled a face on him.

 

“You’ve got a real way with words, Eastwood,” the musician joked, but he started doling half-shredded jeon onto his plate anyways.

 

“I’ve got more batter left if anyone has requests,” McCree said, shrugging. “I just wanted the ones for Song to look the best.” Before he could sit back down, thunderous footsteps caught all of their attention.

 

“My friends! I hear laughter and smell good food, but am not invited? My heart breaks!”

 

“Aw, Rein.” Lena hopped up to sling a hug around the old knight’s shoulders. “We just got here ourselves, love! We didn’t mean to leave you out!”

 

McCree sighed, a smile tugging at his lips as he moseyed back to the bowl of jeon batter. “I’ll start some more,” he called over his shoulder.

 

“Oh? What is this? Potato pancakes?” Reinhardt peered at the serving platters as he stole McCree’s abandoned seat.

 

“Jeon,” Hana practically sang, “made special for _me_ , even!”

 

Somewhat to her surprise, Reinhardt lit up and slapped a hand across her shoulders, making everyone wince. Since the idol didn’t go sprawling, he probably remembered to control his strength. With some difficulty, she straightened back up as his laughter boomed across the small space.

 

“Congratulations!” His smile was infectious. “Now you are part of the family, young Song! Jesse has made food just for you!”

 

“What, is it some kind of initiation rite?” Lucio leaned forward in his seat.

 

“It has become so,” Angela agreed from the doorway, propping her arm against the steel and her chin on her hand. “Jesse - or, oh, back in the day, Gabriel - would catch you being homesick, or down, or just feel like making you feel nice. Next thing you know, they end up shoving a mountain of maultaschen into your arms. Most people thought I didn’t even _eat_ meat at the time.”

 

“You should make that again,” Reinhardt said with even more enthusiasm than usual, swiveling in his seat. “Maultaschen for the both of us, rouladen and rote grutze for me!”

 

“Please eat a vegetable someday,” Angela said, tone both teasing and resigned.

 

“You never cooked for _me,_ ” Lucio said, sounding betrayed. McCree turned back to the stove on the pretense of flipping more pancakes, but also to have an excuse not to look into those puppy-dog eyes.

 

“Send me a suggestion, then. And there’s lots of people I ain’t cooked especially for yet.”

 

“Ooh! Ooh! What about arroz doce? No, wait- let me think-”

 

McCree grinned, though no one could see it. The kitchen was thick with the voices and laughter of friends, the smell of good food, the warmth of camaraderie.

  
Gabe would be proud.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Consider:
> 
> A man who spent most of his childhood and teen years on the brink of starvation/malnutrition making sure his ~~family~~ team eats well.
> 
> :)

**Author's Note:**

> also on tumblr: https://elkian.tumblr.com/post/157805597266/remember-fingers-in-i-know-how-to-handle-a


End file.
